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When customers take the time to complain about quality or safety problems, they deserve thanks and serious consideration. Companies pay handsomely for the kind of research that dissatisfied customers provide for free.

But some people just get a brush-off because they can’t reach corporate managers who take such input seriously. And even if they do, the’re given vague assurances about having their complaints reviewed.

You’ll find a few examples of disappointing treatment below, starting with a father whose child was injured on a ride at Canada’s Wonderland and wanted to know why there wasn’t a first aid centre close at hand.

32 comments

I want to share with you a story that happened at Canada’s Wonderland on Friday May 7th.

My 4 year old daughter got injured on one of the new rides in their kids area. I was directed to go to the First Aid station at the Guest Services in the Kids area to get her an ice pack.

Well, there is no First Aid station at the Guest Services in the kids area.

The lady at the guest services had a Canadian Tire-bought First Aid kit that contained a few Band-aids and a rubber glove. She directed me to the First Aid station near the entrance to the park (a good 10 minute walk).

I told her that I wanted someone to bring me ice. She had to pull out a book to find a phone number and the first number she found was the wrong one.

Not until I complained to someone with a walkie-talkie could she call two First Aid staff from the park.

My daughter had a huge bump over her eye and her eye was swollen half shut when she finally got ice 25 minutes later!

I was given your e-mail and I was told you would pass along this e-mail to someone that can definitely make something happen.

This morning, my daughter fell while getting on the new car ride in the Planet Snoopy area. She required ice to stop the swelling above her eye. It took 25 minutes to get ice for my daughter.

What disappointed me the most was that there is no First Aid Station in the Kids area. There needs to be a station where a parent can take a child in the event of a minor emergency. The only way to get First Aid (minor or major) is to have the Park First Aid Services called.

I work for the largest privately run children’s day camp in Canada. If it took me 25 minutes to get an ice pack to a child, I would probably lose a whole bunch of campers.

For a park of the size of Wonderland, I can’t believe there is no First Aid Station in the Children’s area of the park.

This past winter, my family had the opportunity to spend a week in Disney World and we were so impressed.

After the incident today, I went on Disney’s website to see where their First Aid Stations are located and there is a station in almost every area of the parks!

Wonderland, from what I could see has 2 – neither near the kids area.

I am encouraging the Directors, Supervisors, Managers at Canada’s Wonderland to really think hard about the reasoning for NOT having a first aid station in the Kids area of the park.

I am hoping that the Park Staff will consider moving very quickly on ensuring that a First Aid station is in the Children’s area as soon as possible.

If the park decides that a First Aid Station is not necessary in the kids area of the park, I really hope there is a VERY good reason for not having this station and I would like to know what this reason is.

For the safety of all the children who visit Canada’s Wonderland on a daily basis, I cannot see a VERY good reason for not having a First Aid Station in the kids area of the park.

I would greatly appreciate a follow-up e-mail as I am currently re-considering our children’s safety at Canada’s Wonderland.

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I then received a response from Alison Sanders (Manager of Health & Safety):

Your email was forwarded to me by our Guest Services Manager as I am responsible for First Aid at Canada’s Wonderland.

Firstly, it is unfortunate that your daughter sustained an injury during your visit to the park. I hope she has since recovered from her fall.

I have carefully reviewed your comments. I thank you for taking the time to write to us to offer your suggestions and concerns.

I, along with other members of our management team, will consider your comments when determining the locations of our First Aid units.

Sincerely,

Alison Sanders
Manager, Health & Safety

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I followed up that e-mail to her:

Thank you for the e-mail. My daughter still has a black eye – it is healing slowly. I think this is as a result of getting ice on the eye too late after the incident happened.

I would like to know when you and the other members of the management team will be considering my comments.

When will I a response in regards to the management team deciding to put a first aid station in the children’s area of the park or a VERY good reason why one is not necessary in this area?

Your response to my original e-mail has not satisfied my concerns and I will await to hear back from you.

In the meantime, my wife and I have decided that we will hold off on returning to the park with our children until we receive a satisfactory answer.

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Here was Alison’s response:

The decisions regarding changes to our operating structure, including the locations of our First Aid stations, are made through a confidential internal process at Canadaâ€™s Wonderland.

As there are many factors involved, I cannot provide you with specific details in terms of the decision to place a First Aid station in the Childrenâ€™s Area. I can ensure you that your comments are currently being considered.

Once again, we sincerely thank you for your feedback.

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I was furious with this last response, so I tried calling her and left her a message. At the end of the day, I still didn’t hear back from her, so I tried calling again. Once again she did not pick up the phone.

Ten seconds later, I called and this time, I blocked my number. She answered on the first ring – WOW!

I told her that her response was not good enough for me and that I wanted to know a good reason for not having a First Aid Station in the kid’s area of the park.

She once again told me that this information is confidential and all the operational issues would be discussed, but again they are confidential.

After 20 minutes on the phone with her and getting nowhere, I gave up. I was pretty disappointed that a Public Company like Cedar Fair was not protecting the safety of our children at Canada’s Wonderland.

I would love to share this story with the citizens of Toronto as I believe changes need to be made at Wonderland for the safety of all of our children!

I have been a 30 year+ customer of Sears. I have furnished my home, purchased numerous appliances and was an avid catalogue buyer in my early years.

Therefore, I am very disheartened by the lack of client consideration from Sears in the last several years.

Today I received an invoice for $26.24 for the cost of a Sears Advantage Membership Fee.

I was informed by Chase card services that I would have received a letter telling me about this new Membership. Then a month later, I would have received a package with a $5 discount and other paraphernalia that would have been of interest to me.

I was told that if I didn’t want to be a member, then I should have returned the package.

Since I have not purchased anything on my card since 2009, I didn’t bother opening anything from Sears until today — which was purely unintentional as I was in a hurry to open mail and I happened to open the Sears’ envelope.

As soon as I saw the charge, I called Chase. They told me that it was not their policy regarding the “package return” and therefore, they could not issue me a credit.

I called the Canadian Government and was advised that according to Section 13 of the Goods & Services Act, the consumer is not responsible for unsolicited goods, whether mailed or otherwise.

I called Chase a second time to bring this to their attention. Once again, they referred me to Sears.

After getting four different telephone numbers and spending an hour explaining my situation at every number, I finally reached Sears Corporate Customer Service at 1-888-473-2772. They proceeded to tell me that this was a Chase issue.

I’m afraid I lost it. Sears have hired Chase as their corporate financial service, and as I tried to explain, Sears are ultimately responsible for Sears policy if it goes out under their logo and name. So why can I not speak to someone who makes those decisions?

I apologize to the person that I spoke to at Corporate Customer Service. I realize that she is not responsible for the lack of direction from Sears, but unfortunately, she is the last representative of Sears that I spoke to.

She told me that if I didn’t want to resolve the issue with Chase, my only other recourse was to write a letter to Sears Corporate Office at 500 College St. East, Belleville, On K8N 5L3. Which I will do by copy of this e-mail.

For $26.24, Sears is going to lose a 30+ year customer. I am going to discuss this issue with everyone I know and hopefully, this will get picked up as a news item for further investigation. But maybe bad press is better than no press and I may be giving Sears free publicity through the notoriety.

I have also contacted the Better Business Bureau of Canada to inform them of this situation as well.

My wife and I are regular readers of your columns and are big fans. I thought I’d share a couple of recent experiences we’ve had with the Toronto Star itself:

1. We are currently Saturday-only subscribers. A few months ago, the Star was running a promotion for the weekday paper. When the promotion was coming to an end, we got a phone call from someone on behalf of the Star inviting us to continue the weekday subscription.

From the caller’s accent, it was clear she wasn’t calling from Canada, but from somewhere in the U.S. When I asked her where she was, she candidly replied that she was indeed calling from a U.S. call centre hired by the Star.

Why is it that the Toronto Star can’t find a call centre in Canada?

2. We’re aware that the Star has moved to make the Saturday Starweek insert an optional/extra-cost item. As we have no interest in receiving it, we did not respond to the various ads inviting us to log on to http://www.SayYesToStarweek.com to sign up.

However, when we received a Starweek with our Saturday Star last weekend, I called the Star subscription number and spoke to someone named “Melvin”.

Melvin informed me that he had a record that someone from our home had called the Star on April 19 to request the Starweek. If we wanted to cancel now, there would be a charge for the copies delivered to date.

When I challenged Melvin to tell me what the Star’s records showed as the name of the alleged caller, he put me on hold, then came back to tell me that the Starweek would be cancelled and that we wouldn’t be charged for it after all (which is only fair, since no one called from our home to ask for it in the first place.)

So here’s a question: What’s with the Star’s business systems if its records show a call coming from our house when no such call was ever placed?

And a secondary question: Melvin was a nice-enough person to deal with on the phone, but it seemed to me that I was speaking to someone who was not likely on this continent – what’s with that? As I asked before, can’t the Star find a call centre in Canada?

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Toronto Star response:

Dear Mr. Turko,

Thank you for your recent note to our columnist, Ellen Roseman. Ellen has passed your letter on to me, as I am the manager who looks after Circulation Customer Service.

With regards to your first question about using foreign call centres, we do indeed contract a small portion of our outbound telemarketing work to foreign call centres, although the vast majority still originates from Canada.

For inbound customer service calls, we outsourced our calls to a third party call centre company several years ago. Again, the majority of those calls are answered in Canada, but some calls are taken in India as well.

We have significant processes in place to monitor call quality to ensure that our customers are receiving the best customer service possible.

We choose our call centres carefully with an eye for quality, as well as meeting cost requirements.

Regarding your second concern about Starweek, we have a record of your home being called on Wednesday April 14th at around 5:34 pm by an automated (i.e. pre-recorded) calling system.

Our records indicate that a live person answered the call at your number and opted-in to Starweek by pressing 2 on a touch tone phone.

I apologize for the less than perfect response you received from Melvin when calling in, but am glad the situation was rectified in one call.

Please let me know if there is anything further you would like to discuss.

Sincerely,

Andrew Kendall

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Hi Andrew, thanks for the reply.

I hope the Star remembers its own decision next time there’s a news story about some other institution purchasing goods or services from outside Canada!

As far as that phone call goes, our call display logs only go back to the end of April.

But my wife and I were both at work at the time of the alleged call, and as far as I know our dogs haven’t yet learned to answer the phone! So from our perspective that call record just doesn’t sound right.

Iâ€™m shocked with your irresponsible resolution. The fact that â€˜all manufacturers have legs manufactured in Chinaâ€™ doesnâ€™t make the mistake – that your sales person committed – right. Why do you try to change topic?

The concern is not about whether there is any 100% Canadian made furniture. The question is whether the customer was misled or not. If you agree that the sales person indeed incorrectly stated something about the product, it is fair you give the customer the full refund.

If the price iwaz only $100, letâ€™s say, Iâ€™m sure you would be willing to give the full refund.

When you have the time, you might want to go through some of the great postings that Ellen has here. You will see that in all the cases, the companies gave a full refund to the customers when the customers are not satisfied with the product. They call it â€˜goodwill gestureâ€™, in case you never heard about it.

I wouldn’t buy anything from the Brick if they were the last retailer on earth. The “response” from their “dispute resolution” department (how’s that for a big red flag?) only reinforces my avoiding them at all costs.

Darren, did you get in touch with Cedar Fair Entertainment Company in Ohio? You should contact their Customer Service Dept and let them know what happened.

Apparently, Wonderland has a policy of calling an EMT (apparently there are two EMTs on staff) whenever there’s an injury or an accident. It sounds like Wonderland dropped the ball in your daughter’s case.

I’m truly surprised that Wonderland hasn’t done an interview or follow-up on the accident, especially because your daughter was on a new ride. You’d think, at the very least, that they’d want to track any incidents.

Anyway, definitely get in touch with the parent company in Ohio, and you might want to try contacting Ontario’s TSSA, as well.

I can’t believe my eyes! The Brick’s manager effectively said that the Brick did not provide the employees accurate information of their products; the employee passed the inaccurate info to the customer. When customer bought the product based on the wrong information from the company, it’s now her problem. Too bad!

I am not against Chinese products, just against false advertising and irresponsible customer service! I will avoid the Brick!

If folks want to write reports about companies (GOOD and bad reports about companies and services), I just wanted to let people know that Angie’s List opened in Toronto, a few weeks ago. I’m sure many people have seen their TV commercials, but if not, here’s a link.

Thank you for your supportive comments re my situation with The Brick. You make me feel like I have a team behind me.

I have reported them to the BBB, where there are 482 complaints against The Brick. I have also reported them to the Federal Competition Bureau for false advertising and if that doesn’t work I’ll take them to small claims court.

I feel that if a company states their product is 100%, that’s what it should be and if not then advertise truthfully and state it’s 95% or 90%. What’s wrong with being truthful?

Julia, if 428 complaints have been lodged against The Brick, why is the company still a BBB accredited company with a B+ rating? You’d think with THAT many complaints, The Brick would lose their accreditation or get a D or F rating, but that won’t happen because the BBB doesn’t want to lose the revenue they collect from The Brick.

The Brick is a BBB “accredited business,” but the BBB does NOT endorse The Brick, per se. Businesses pay membership fees to the BBB to become “accredited”. So, any time you see a BBB accreditation logo, sign or wall plaque, just know that the business paid for it.

The cost of a BBB membership depends on the number of employees and size of a business. I’m assuming The Brick pays a LOT to the BBB, given all the stores and employees across the county. Just my guess…the BBB isn’t going to risk losing revenue from a large company by fighting vigorously, and in an neutral, unbiased way, on behalf of a consumer.

Anyway, The Brick stated the furniture was made in Canada, but that doesn’t necessarily mean the parts came from Canada. The screws could have come from China, fabric from Indonesia, wood from BC, stuffing from Mexico…etc.

An aside: here’s a link to The Brick’s webpage: “Overseas Suppliers, Become Our Supplier of Choice!”

I forwarded your Blog comments to The Brick this morning and guess what? I received a call from The Brick and they will be picking up the furniture and giving me a full refund, except I will be responsible for paying a delivery charge.

I’ve been fighting this issue with The Brick for 2 months and now. Thanks to Ellen and thanks to the support from her readers, it looks like it has gotten resolved.

So, if you feel you’ve been cheated, fight back and let’s support each other.

Completely agree with John, I despise the Brick for many reasons including their deceiving financing plans, but complaining when 5% is made in China? Even Canadian and north American standards allow up to a certain percentage of foreign material and still allow it be said as Made in Canada, 5% is definitely agreeable.

If Julia has purchase a new Canadian Made sofa she may be interested in a product list I have been compiling. It liste the components of several products and where the components are made. We can reference her new sofa with the manufacturers name and model. I will caution her that 99.99% of sofas made in Canada have fabric, springs, screws,foam, staples and feet made in China. I would like to add her manufacturer to the list to see if there is a 100% Canadian sofa. The list has expanded to food, she dosen’t want to know.

You are not alone. I had the same bad experience dealing with a The Brick store in Ottawa. I am sure there are many dissatisfied customers out there.

I recently purchased a kitchen table and 4 chairs. When the product arrived at our home, we discovered that one chair wobbled and another had a broken chair leg.

I went back to the store and had to wait over 30 minutes to get so called â€œcustomer serviceâ€. Finally, the manager came to talk to us and we showed him the damaged chairs. He agreed that there was a problem and he indicated that The Brick will put in an order for 2 new chairs to replace the damaged ones.

He told me to keep the damaged chairs until the new order come in and that it would take about a month for them to arrive. He also indicated that we would be contacted by phone when the product was in.

Well, a month had passed and I called them. I was told that no one was available to check about the chairs or even look at my record because they were too busy right now. So, I went to the Brick in person and then they told me the bad news: the chairs would not arrive for another 6 weeks. It was in back order but no one at the store bothered to call me.

Also, they placed a wrong order for me â€“ a table and one chair instead of two chairs. I was very disappointed at that point and I felt that I no longer had confidence in them. At that point, I asked for my money back, but to my surprise, they are not like other retail stores in that they do not offer refunds to customers – only store credit towards any future purchase with them.

Of course, I refused the idea of a store credit. All the manager can say to me is that I just have to wait for my product and that there was nothing he can do until then.

I am extremely disappointed at how I got treated as a customer at The Brick. I went back the next day and offered a solution; I was willing to take one of the floor model chairs temporarily as a substitute for the broken chair until the new ones arrived.

Of course, the treatment this time was even worse. The customer service clerk said “absolutely not” and that she will only let me take the floor model as is and give up the order to replace the damaged chairs. I refused this option.

At this point, she attempted to place the blame on me for not inspecting the product before I signed off on the delivery, which of course comes in sealed boxes at the time. On top of that, she tried to make me accept the situation by indicating that I still had 3 chairs, even after I explained to her that we are 4 people and we need 4 chairs. She said there is nothing they can do… just like the day before.

I think The Brick has a training manual for their staff that tells them to promise the moon until you get their money. If anyone else out there has had a bad experience with the Brick, please send responses and let see how long the list becomes. Maybe, it could be sent in one batch e-mail â€“ a list of all complaints from customers who had a bad experience with them.

What’s wrong with China? There is a mindset, it seems, that their stuff is no good. In fact, stuff in Canada is the same quality.

By the way, the Brick is not the general store on the corner. It is a major nationwide company and if you had to wait for your product, it’s because of the manufacturer, not the Brick.

As far as salespeople go, they are on commission and they realize they have to know their product in order to put food on their table, because they don’t get paid unless it is in your home.

But you have to realize there is a lot of product and they cannot know everything about every single piece, as the product line changes so often.

Furthermore, they have no say as to where or how it is made. Also, the reason most retailers get merch from China is because the customer nowadays doesn’t want to pay big ticket prices — and that isn’t possible with made in Canada at the present time.

Everyone knows we live in a me first world now, but business does not flow that way, believe me.

Like any retailer, the Brick wants nothing more than to satisfy their customers. Sooner than later, they pride themselves on customer return.

As far as waiting in line at customer service, you are not the only person to have a reason to be at customer service, so forgive them for not dismissing all the other customers to look after your complaint before everyone else’s.

Maybe next time when you are taking a number at the deli, you should speak up so that you can be number 1 for the ham. Finally, only 428 complaints!!! I am impressed.

Have you any idea how many customers the Brick has?? To have such a small number of registered complaints is astounding to me! Maybe that’s why they are accredited?

I would like to add, I learned a phrase in Latin many years ago, caveat emptor (buyer beware).

The essence of this phrase is to know what you are buying, as the choice is yours and yours alone.

In today’s world, it only makes sense to research the product you want before you ever step foot in any retail door, so that you have some idea as to what you are looking for and prepared to accept.

Do people not realize that they are responsible for their own choices? If I choose to buy pork chops because they were on sale when I really wanted beef, is that the grocer’s fault for enticing me to the sale item? I guess I am having pork chops for dinner!

Being in sales myself as well as being a consumer, I realize that every company has multiple departments. They all have a hand in your purchase/product, from the manufacturer to the salespeople, customer service, warehouse personnel, delivery people, etc. That’s a lot of hands to go through and hope that all goes well.

Having said that, as far as the salesperson goes, we rely on customers being satisfied and returning. The last thing we want to hear is that something went wrong!

Unfortunately, it is out of our hands what happens after that.

If I had a nickel for every customer who called me and screamed at me and called me names for something that went wrong, I would retire! All I can say is, Where do you work?

Slsp,
With all respect due to you, you really don’t sound very concerned about “what happens” after “it’s out of your hands”. If you are selling products that you know will cause people problems in the future, you’re kind of a scumbag…

A few days ago, we bought a dishwasher at THE BRICK store in Guelph. We paid to have it delivered, installed and the old one removed.

Two days ago, someone called and told us it would be delivered and installed some time after 1 pm (Friday). Then, last night, the same person called to advise that it would be delivered between 3 and 4 this afternoon.

While I was out this morning, our son was home and got a call from THE BRICK store in Kitchener, telling us that the dishwasher was there and could be picked up after paying the $20 pickup charge!!!???!!!

When I got home and he told me, I was pretty upset!!! Suffice it to say after about 15-20 phone conversations (mostly in a big circle) over the next couple of hours, wherein it became patently obvious that the left hand obviously didnâ€™t know what the right hand was doing, the unit was finally delivered and installed later in the afternoon.

I even had one poorly trained girl (apparently at the Kitchener store, but I canâ€™t be certain since I started getting confused after having to make so many phone calls) insist in three separate phone calls (donâ€™t know how I kept being connected with this same airhead) that I had to come to the Kitchener store and pick it up after paying the $20 pickup charge. It was all I could do to keep from â€˜losing itâ€™ with her.

Then, when we went to load the first load of dishes, we discovered the door was damaged.

We called the guys who delivered and installed it (they had been told it would be at the Guelph store for them to pick up and deliver, but they ended up having to go to the Kitchener store to get it).

They returned and confirmed the damage and said that it was very likely caused by the truck driver who loaded it on its side (apparently a HUGE â€˜No, Noâ€™) on a dolly to put in into their truck.

They said we’d have to call THE BRICK Guelph store and tell them the tale of woe and insist that they deliver a NEW unit directly to our house, put it in place after removing the defective one, and then, they would come back and hook it up.

I made the call while the installers were still here and they spoke to the girl at the store and confirmed the damage.

Now we have to wait until Tuesday for this to hopefully get done. â€˜Colour meâ€™ sceptical!

The moral of the story: Unless someone at THE BRICK Head Office can change our minds, no more purchases from THE BRICK or, very likely, from LEONS which recently bought THE BRICK.

We definitely feel we are owed some kind of compensation (NOT a store credit!!!) for putting up with all this stress and inconvenience.

Wow! The Brick (565 HUNT CLUB ROAD, Ottawa) has the worse customer service.

I’ve purchased furniture from them and they gave me $701 discount. Two months later, I get a call from a rude representative from the Brick and she claimed that I owed them $701 and that she would send my information to collections if I don’t pay immediately.

I spoke with the sales manager (Dave) and he was not helpful. He was unsympathetic and extremely rude. They did not even explain to me the cause of their mistake.

I am done with the Brick and I’ll make sure none of my friends don’t buy anything from the Brick. I will make sure my friends send out the message on Twitter and Facebook and I’ll even go to the media if they do not resolve my issue.

This wee, I’m meeting with the store manager and I hope he can help out.

It does not seem right to me that E-tickets bought from Canada’s Wonderland are not refundable.

My family was not able to make it sown to Canada’s Wonderland this season and I received no service from Canada’s Wonderland. I cost them nothing and all they can suggest is that I give the tickets away to someone else. Does not seem right.

I will continue to pursue this through social media, as well as other print and online media. As with what happened with gift certificates with expiry dates, something has to be done.

This place is the worst: Canada’s Wonderland. I wonder how they have any business, the way they treat people.

Their website is such a peace of crap that it took me 10 tries to get my credit card to go through. I was on the phone constantly with them in the evening when my order had not gone through properly.

I tried to finish the rest of it and got cut off by their system, only to be charged so many times my card was maxed out. I need to get into the park tomorrow and my money is being held hostage by them. There is no accountability at this place!